My Husband's Wife Page 18

  Joe’s hand tightens on mine.

  My words are blurting out now along with the tears. ‘I tipped him over. He wasn’t well …’

  Joe’s voice is gentle. ‘What exactly was wrong with him?’

  I shake my head. ‘What they used to call “wilful disobedience”, possibly brought on by a difficult childhood. That’s what the so-called experts said.’ I laugh hoarsely. ‘He was never officially diagnosed, but sometimes I do wonder if …’

  I stop, not wanting to cause offence.

  ‘If he was on the autistic spectrum too?’

  ‘Possibly.’ I twist my hands awkwardly. ‘But there were other things he did that didn’t fit.’

  Joe is looking thoughtful. ‘So that’s why you understand me.’ It’s not a question.

  I nod. Embarrassed. And yet also grateful that this man understands me too.

  ‘I’m so sorry about your horse.’ Joe’s voice has a softness I’ve never heard before.

  I look up at him. His eyes are brown now. How can he do that? Go from brown to black and back to brown again?

  ‘Actually,’ I add, searching in my bag for a tissue, ‘he was Daniel’s. That’s what made it so difficult.’

  ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ says Joe. And as we stand up, it seems quite natural for him to take my hand in his.

  22

  Carla

  A few days after Carla’s visit, Maria had put up her hand at register and asked if she could be moved to another desk in the classroom.

  ‘Why?’ whispered Carla, even though her sinking heart told her the answer.

  Maria ignored her. It was as if she hadn’t spoken.

  ‘Who would like to sit next to Carla?’ said the nun with the gappy teeth.

  No one volunteered. Instead, everyone shuffled away. One of the girls – the one with pigtails who usually invited her to play hopscotch – cupped her hand around her neighbour’s ear to say something quietly. The other one let out a little gasp.

  It was like being at the old school all over again. Carla was so upset that she could not complete her maths exercise: a subject she now shone at. The figures hung in the air with giant question marks. What was going on?

  ‘They have sent you to Coventry,’ said another girl – the most unpopular one in the class, whom the nun had sent to fill Maria’s place next to Carla. She had greasy hair which her mother would only allow her to wash once a month because, so she had told Carla, it was better for the ‘natural oils’. This girl was always last to be chosen for teams: to be placed next to her was one of the gravest insults.

  ‘Coventry?’ Carla did not understand. ‘Where is that?’

  The girl with the greasy hair shrugged. ‘It’s where they don’t speak to you.’ Then she held out her arm. ‘It will be much nicer now there are two of us.’

  But Carla didn’t want to be friends with the girl with the greasy hair whom everyone else despised. She wanted to be friends with Maria, whose mother had invited her back for tea in their lovely big house on the road with the wide pavement, where no one kicked beer cans in the street.

  At milk-time, Carla sought out Maria in the playground. ‘Tell me what I have done wrong,’ she pleaded.

  For the first time that day, Maria raised her face and looked at her. Those beautiful blue eyes were cold. Disdainful. ‘Papa has an uncle who lives at the foot of the mountains, not far from Florence.’ Maria was talking as if Carla smelled of something nasty. ‘He knows your grandparents. They all do. And they say your mother is a bad woman.’

  Mamma? A bad woman? Mamma with her kind warm smile who smelled of Apple Blossom and all the other lovely scents that she sold every day at an expensive shop for other men’s wives? That could not be true.

  ‘Maria! Maria!’ It was the gappy-toothed nun, striding towards them with her crucifix necklace swinging and her lips tightening. ‘I am under instructions from your mother not to let you talk to that girl.’

  Carla’s eyes welled with tears. ‘Why?’

  The nun crossed herself swiftly across her large breasts: breasts that she and Maria had giggled about together only last week. ‘You will find out soon enough. Be sure to collect an envelope addressed to your mother from the school office before you go home this afternoon.’

  Mamma wept and wailed when she read the letter. ‘The Mother Superior wants to see your birth certificate,’ she sobbed, head in hands on the wobbly kitchen table. ‘She wants proof that you had a papa. This is my fault for sending you to a Catholic school. The old one wouldn’t have cared.’

  Carla put an arm around Mamma. ‘Perhaps it is under your bed where you keep your special things?’

  Mamma’s lip curled. For a moment, she reminded Carla of the wicked witch in one of her favourite books from the library. ‘How dare you go looking there?’

  Carla thought of the handsome man with the funny hat whom she looked at every now and then when Mamma wasn’t home. He always smiled at her so kindly!

  ‘They are only pictures, Mamma. I was curious.’

  Mamma let out a groan. ‘Perhaps you deserve to know. That man is your papa.’

  Her father! So that is what he had looked like. ‘Maybe,’ said Carla, trying to be helpful, ‘he has taken these papers with him to heaven.’

  ‘No. He has not!’ Mamma rose to her full height, tossing back her glorious black hair. She was angry now instead of sad. ‘If you had not opened your mouth to Maria’s mother, none of this would have happened.’

  The sob burst out of Carla’s mouth like a giant hiccup. ‘But I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong.’

  It was no good. Mamma took herself to her bedroom and – for the first time that Carla could remember – locked her door.

  ‘Please, please open it,’ she begged from outside.

  But all she could hear was Mamma sobbing.

  Maybe, Carla told herself, Mamma’s mood would pass, like it had after Christmas. Perhaps on Monday the girls would start to be nice to her again.

  But she was wrong. It got worse over the weeks. Then Mamma received a letter from the Mother Superior. She had until March to produce the birth certificate. Otherwise, Carla would have to leave. It should have been ‘presented’, apparently, when she had started school. But there had been an ‘oversight’.

  No one wanted to play with her at break-time. Snow had started to fall last week: all the others pressed their noses against the window and talked excitedly about building snowmen when they got home. Maria had already got a new best friend: a pretty girl whose uncle had given her a silver cross which she showed off to everyone. Even the greasy-haired girl moved away from Carla when they had to crowd into the gym because it was too wet to play outside.

  ‘I heard someone say you were a bastard,’ she said quietly.

  Carla ran the word around her mouth all afternoon and until she got home. How strange. It wasn’t in the Children’s Dictionary. ‘What does “bastard” mean?’ she asked when Mamma returned from work in her smart white uniform.

  ‘Is that what they are calling you now?’ Then her mother placed her head on the kitchen table and beat her fists so that one of the legs cracked and had to be propped up with the telephone directory.

  Another day passed. And another.

  ‘The certificate has not come from Italy yet?’

  ‘No, cara mia.’

  Even when Mamma eventually admitted there was no such certificate, they still both waited for the postman. ‘Then we can honestly say that we are waiting for it to arrive,’ explained Mamma, brushing Carla’s hair as she did every night. ‘If only I could tell Larry. He could help.’

  That was another thing. Larry was working very hard. So hard that he didn’t have time to visit them. ‘He is an important man,’ Mamma often said. ‘He helps the Queen decide what is right and what is wrong.’

  Then, one evening, when Carla was already in bed, she heard his voice at the front door. Usually he came in through the back. Besides, it was a Wednesday! Larry only came here
on a Tuesday and Thursday and sometimes on Sundays (although recently his visits on the Lord’s Day had become more frequent). Something had happened. She could tell. Creeping out of bed, in her pyjamas, she saw Larry twirling Mamma in his arms right out there in the corridor for everyone to see. Ugh!

  ‘Love you … We won the case … Wanted to tell you before I went home.’

  Words drifted out. Words she didn’t understand. Then there was another voice.

  ‘Tony?’

  It was Lily!

  ‘That’s not Tony.’ Carla came running up, keen to make it all right. ‘This is Larry. He is my mother’s friend. The one who sees her on Sundays while you have me …’

  Then she clasped her hand to her mouth because, of course, Lily thought Mamma had been working. Not lying in bed with Larry.

  Now Mamma would be cross with her again. But instead, she seemed confused. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Tony, what are you doing?’ Lily was staring at Larry with a strange look on her face.

  Mamma started to sound scared. ‘This is no Tony. You have made a mistake. Larry! Tell her.’

  But Larry pushed her hand away and was moving towards Lily. His neck was very red. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.

  It was difficult to hear exactly what he was saying in the corner, although she caught words like ‘appreciate’ and ‘confidential’, both of which she could spell perfectly because they had been at the beginning of the dictionary.

  ‘You want me to keep quiet about your sordid affair?’ Lily was shouting now. Then she turned to Mamma. Carla had never seen her friend’s eyes flash like that. ‘How could you go off with someone else’s husband? Don’t you have any shame? As for you, Tony, if I see you again with this woman, I will tell your wife.’

  Carla had a sudden picture of the curtains closing in the house they had walked past at Christmas.

  ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘There’s a child involved here, Tony. I’m warning you. I meant what I said just now.’

  Then Lily stormed back into her own flat, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘Why is she angry?’ asked Carla as Larry pushed them into their own flat.

  ‘How do you know Lily?’ frowned Mamma, pulling at Larry’s sleeve.

  Larry wasn’t red any more. He was white. ‘She,’ he said, pointing, ‘needs to go to her room.’

  ‘No.’ Mamma stamped her foot. It reminded Carla of the dancing noise through the wall at night, but her mother wasn’t dancing now. ‘My daughter hears too. You tell lies to me? Then you tell lies to her too. We deserve to know the truth.’

  We? A lovely warm feeling ran through Carla. For the first time since Larry had come into their lives, it felt as though she and Mamma were a team again.

  Larry’s face had its angry look on. ‘As you wish. You know I have another family. I made that clear at the beginning.’

  Mamma hung her head as if hearing something she didn’t want to.

  ‘I work with Lily. She doesn’t know about … about my life at home. She doesn’t know about us. Nor does anyone else. I told you my name was Larry to keep some kind of anonymity.’ There was a deep sigh. ‘But my name is really Tony.’

  ‘Tony Smith like Larry Smith?’ whispered her mother.

  The angry look had gone. Instead there was a sigh. A big, tired one. ‘No. Tony Gordon.’

  Mamma’s lips were moving as if she was repeating all this to herself. Or maybe she was saying her Ave Marias.

  ‘I understand,’ she said at last. ‘We will have to be more careful.’

  Tony took her in his arms. ‘Francesca, listen to me. We will have to have a break until this blows over. I can’t risk Lily telling my wife …’

  As he held her, he looked at Carla. She knew what he was saying. Knew it as clearly as if he was speaking. Go away. You are not wanted right now. This was her chance.

  ‘What about the woman in your car?’ she burst out. ‘The woman you were kissing before my birthday. Do you love her too?’

  There was a terrible silence. Her mother took a step backwards, falling against the kitchen table as she did so and knocking the telephone directory out of place. Larry opened his mouth and roared, ‘You conniving little –’

  ‘Get out!’

  At first Carla thought Mamma was screaming at her. But no. It was at Larry. ‘Get out, get out!’ she yelled again. Horrified, Carla watched as Mamma hurled a tin at him. A tin of baked beans. It missed. Just. Then another. This time it was a tin of tomatoes. Italian tomatoes.

  Larry’s face was so angry that Carla thought the tomatoes had broken out of the tin and painted his cheeks. ‘You’ve made a big mistake, young lady,’ he said, bending down to her level. ‘You will see.’

  Then he stormed out, leaving Mamma to weep, kneeling on the floor with her body folded over, rather like a snail’s shell.

  ‘I am sorry, Mamma,’ Carla whispered. ‘I should not have mentioned the lady in the car. I promised Larry I would say nothing. That was why he gave me the caterpillar …’

  Mamma lifted her face. It was red and blotchy. Just like Larry’s had been. ‘He bribed you?’

  Then Mamma cried even more. She cried so loudly that Carla’s stomach began to hurt. The pain grew worse and worse so that it became a knot that throbbed inside her.

  When the phone rang, they both ignored it.

  ‘I’ve got a tummy ache,’ said Carla quietly.

  Mamma was still lying on the floor. ‘Do not expect me to believe you,’ she sobbed. ‘I will believe no one. Ever again. Not even myself.’

  That night, Carla’s pain grew worse. In her dreams, it became a red-hot stick, beating her inside. Someone was holding it. Maria. Lash, lash, against her body.

  ‘Maria!’ she called out. ‘Please stop. Let me play!’

  ‘It’s all right, little one.’ Mamma’s voice floated over her. ‘The doctor is coming.’

  23

  Lily

  By the time I come back from Hampstead, it is nearly seven o’clock. Ed is sitting at the kitchen table, working on a sketch.

  ‘We won,’ I say.

  He starts, and I can see that he’s been so involved with his work that he’d forgotten today is verdict day. Then he collects himself. ‘Wonderful,’ he says, leaping up and throwing his arms around me. ‘We must celebrate! Open a bottle.’ His face tightens. ‘Then we can have that talk you’ve been promising.’

  My hand shakes on the fridge door at the thought of the conversation ahead. My heart sinks. The Pinot that had been there at breakfast time is gone. No guesses as to who drank it. But I don’t feel up to having an argument.

  ‘We’re out of drink,’ I say shortly.

  ‘I’ll go round to the off-licence.’ He’s trying. I’ll say that for him.

  ‘Let me.’ Even though I’ve only just returned, I’m already feeling claustrophobic. My heart is juddering so badly at what I must do that I simply have to get out of here.

  As I make a move, I see a man through the window, striding towards the front entrance. His hat is firmly down over his forehead but there’s something about that walk that looks familiar.

  I close the front door behind me and step into the corridor.

  My eyes struggle to understand what they’re seeing.

  The man who was striding towards our apartment building and who is now twirling Francesca round and round in the air (while little Carla watches in her white pyjamas) is Tony.

  ‘I love you,’ I hear him say, as he puts her back down. ‘We won the case! Wanted to tell you before I went home!’

  Coincidences are one of those things which sound contrived until they happen in real life. During my short time as a lawyer, I’ve already seen so many. Most of them tragic. The father who ran over his toddler by mistake on the day his new baby was born. The grandmother who was held up at knifepoint in the dark by her adopted son, neither aware of the connection at the time. The woman who had a child by a nightclub bouncer, who turned out
to be the father who’d left before she was born – he, unaware of even having a child.

  And now Tony and my neighbour.

  I am disappointed. And fiercely, overpoweringly angry. How can someone uphold the law when they are acting immorally themselves? Such hypocrisy.

  Perhaps it’s also because I remember my mother’s grief when she found out about my father’s affair. An affair which must have been quickly extinguished, because after that row, my parents appeared to carry on as normal. After Daniel’s death I doubt either of them had the energy for love, or for fighting. But it marked my mother. She never spoke to my father the same way again. Part of me thinks she somehow blamed his infidelity for Daniel’s death. Since then, I’ve tried to forgive my father. But you can never really put back the pieces of a fractured family.

  That’s one of the reasons I let rip. ‘How could you go off with someone else’s husband? Don’t you have any shame? As for you, Tony, if I see you again with this woman, I will tell your wife.’

  Of course I wouldn’t really tell Tony’s wife (who I’ve never actually met). That would only cause more hurt. But I’m so angry, I don’t really think about what I’m saying.

  ‘What was all that noise out there?’ asks Ed when I return.

  I tell him what happened.

  My husband looks up from his sketch. It’s a nose. A cute, pert, turned-up nose. Just like Carla’s. ‘You don’t think you should have stayed out of it?’

  ‘No.’ I turn away. ‘It’s not fair – either on her or Tony’s wife and children. Or Carla. Tony was carrying on with Francesca when we were looking after her. Her mother choosing a man over her child! And how on earth did he meet her?’

  ‘You seem more bothered about them than us.’ Ed looks nervous. I know he wants to talk, and I owe it to him. ‘Shall we open that bottle?’

  ‘I forgot to get it.’

  ‘Then I’ll go. This is finished now.’ He lays a hand on my shoulder. ‘I think we both need a glass, don’t you?’

  As he shuts the door, something Tony said during the case comes back to me: ‘There are times when you’ll find yourself swearing that blue is black. You’ll truly believe it yourself. We all do it. It’s not that lawyers lie. It’s that they twist the real facts to make another world that everyone else believes in too. And who’s to say that won’t be a better world?’